Sunday Short: I Want To Be Beautiful... Like You
- Faiz Faisal
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
They said beauty was in the eye of the beholder.
She knew that was a lie.
Because every time she looked into the mirror, the beholder changed.
Some days her face was too wide.
Other days, her nose didn’t belong.
Sometimes her eyes sat unevenly, like they were drifting apart when she wasn’t looking.
She would lean closer, studying every detail, every flaw blooming larger the longer she stared.
“I can fix this,” she would whisper.
But she never touched her own face.
She couldn’t.
Instead, she went outside.
—
She had a system.
Find someone beautiful.
Follow them.
Study them.
Wait.
It wasn’t jealousy—not in the way people thought. She didn’t want to take their beauty.
She wanted to understand it.
Correct it.
Translate it.
“I want to be beautiful… like you,” she would say, voice soft, almost admiring.
And then—
She would begin.
—
The first girl screamed.
They all did.
But she learned to tune it out.
Because this wasn’t cruelty.
This was care.
“You don’t need this,” she would murmur gently, fingers steady, precise. “This isn’t what makes you beautiful.”
Slice.
Adjust.
Reshape.
She wasn’t removing beauty.
She was removing difference.
Little by little, she worked—softening features, narrowing angles, shifting shapes.
Guiding them.
Until—
There.
Closer.
—
When the police found the first body, they were confused.
The face hadn’t been destroyed.
It had been altered.
Deliberately.
Carefully.
Not to resemble someone else.
But to resemble… nothing identifiable.
They didn’t realize they were wrong.
It wasn’t “nothing.”
It was someone.
—
That night, she stood in front of her mirror again.
Her reflection stared back.
Wrong.
Still wrong.
Her breath hitched.
“No… no, that’s not right.”
She turned away quickly.
Then she pulled out her phone.
Opened the photo she had taken earlier.
The girl.
After.
She studied it.
Her lips slowly curved.
“There you are,” she whispered.
In the stillness of the image, she saw it—her face. Not perfectly, not completely, but enough.
Enough to feel it.
Relief.
For a moment, she was beautiful.
—
But the feeling never lasted.
It never did.
The next morning, the mirror betrayed her again.
Her face had shifted.
Warped.
Wrong.
Always wrong.
Panic clawed at her chest.
“No, no, no… I fixed it. I fixed it already.”
She rushed back to the photo.
Zoomed in.
Studied every line.
It wasn’t enough.
It was never enough.
—
So she went out again.
—
The city began to notice.
Girls disappearing.
Faces returned… unfamiliar.
Not like someone else.
But eerily similar to each other.
Same distortions.
Same adjustments.
Same… attempt.
Like someone was copying the same face again and again—
And getting it wrong every time.
—
She kept going.
One girl.
Then another.
Then another.
Each time, she got closer.
Each time, she felt it—that brief, fleeting moment where she could look at them and think:
That’s me.
That’s what I’m supposed to look like.
That’s beautiful.
But mirrors always ruined it.
Mirrors always told the truth she couldn’t accept.
—
One night, she found a girl who made her stop breathing.
Perfect.
Effortless.
Untouched.
Her hands trembled—not with fear, but excitement.
This was it.
This would finally work.
“I want to be beautiful… like you,” she whispered.
The girl turned slowly.
Smiled.
And said—
“I want to be beautiful… like you.”
She froze.
Something felt wrong.
The girl stepped closer.
Too close.
Her smile stretched—just slightly.
Too wide.
Too familiar.
The girl’s face… shifted.
Not changing.
Revealing.
Layer by layer, it looked less like her—
And more like something unfinished.
Something reconstructed.
Something that had been fixed too many times.
Her breath caught.
“No… that’s not—”
Behind them, in the reflection of a dark window—
She saw it.
Not one.
Not two.
But dozens.
Faces.
All standing behind her.
All slightly different.
All almost—
Her.
Watching.
Waiting.
Incomplete.
The girl in front of her tilted her head.
“You’re close,” she whispered.
“Just not right.”
—
The next morning, the police found another body.
They said it was the worst one yet.
Because this time—
The face didn’t just resemble one person.
It resembled many.
Layered.
Stacked.
Trying to become one.
—
And somewhere in the city—
She stood in front of her mirror again.
Touching her face.
Trying to remember—
Which version of her was the real one.
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